


Cut Me Off

by FoxCollector



Series: Love Is Much Worse [6]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Gen, Kind of dark, M/M, Madara alone in a cave, Madara is creepy, Madara is not all there, Madara reflecting on some things, No happy endings, in a way? - Freeform, it's been years, par for the course, past MadaTobi, should have left him down there, voyeuristic?, yeah it counts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2019-01-03 23:54:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,150
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12157401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FoxCollector/pseuds/FoxCollector
Summary: Sometimes he likes to imagine how things went when Hashirama had to explain that he was gone. What did Tobirama look like? Did it keep him up at night? Was he lonely or sad or angry? The culmination of his efforts and the end of his long, slow game, and he hadn’t even been able to see it. A shame, really.





	Cut Me Off

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so unless I think of some bizarre interaction for them during the Fourth Great Shinobi War, I think this is the last part of the series!
> 
> Thanks to everyone who stuck it out with me!
> 
> Read, enjoy, review!

            Madara has only seen Tobirama cry once. And really, he doesn’t even see it firsthand. It’s something Zetsu brings to him, a gift. It makes sense, it’s something he would want to see.

            He isn’t overly fond of the context. He knows Hashirama has died recently, was offered that sight too from Zetsu, but he didn’t take it. He still respects Hashirama enough to give him solitude in his final moments.

            But Tobirama? He’s fair game.

            Madara has never seen anything like it.

            It is…breathtaking.

            Tobirama definitely thinks he is alone, Madara knows him well enough to know that he would never allow himself such a display of emotion in the presence of another (he knows Tobirama better than he cares to admit). It’s an invasion of Tobirama’s privacy, and that fills Madara with something satisfying, and also something heavy that he tries to ignore.

            Tobirama has isolated himself, found a pool of water somewhere safe (old habits died hard, it seemed), and probably ditched his personal guards. He’s bathing, technically, in case anyone manages to find him, but in actuality, he’s breaking down.

            And Madara thinks he is beautiful like that.

            Even with snot running down from his nose, and his eyes squeezed shut, Madara thinks he is beautiful – watches tears pool in the dip of his collar bone. That probably says more about Madara than Tobirama, but he isn’t willing to look into it.

            He can’t take his eyes off of Tobirama.

            There’s satisfaction low and heavy in his stomach.

            He knows that face. Those tears.

            It’s the face of a man who is now completely and utterly alone. Who has lost the most important thing in his life.

            Oh, he knows that face.

            He’s made it.

            There’s the slightest twinge of sympathy beneath the coat of satisfaction, but it’s easier to ignore than he’s comfortable with.

            He never did get to see Tobirama’s face when he left. He thinks maybe that would have been beautiful too. In a different way, perhaps, but no less broken. He left a lot of holes in the Village.

            Sometimes he likes to imagine how things went when Hashirama had to explain that he was gone. What did Tobirama look like? Did it keep him up at night? Was he lonely or sad or angry? The culmination of his efforts and the end of his long, slow game, and he hadn’t even been able to see it. A shame, really.

            Victory is sweet when he thinks about it stripped of context. Madara is good at lying. He knows that as well as Tobirama does. (He’s good at lying about the fact that he almost gave in and paid Tobirama a visit when he was supposed to be dead, good at telling himself it would only have been to kill Tobirama anyway).

            Those thoughts keep him company.

            It gets lonely in the dark.

            Even when the shadows creep in and whisper in his ears, it isn’t the same. An extension of his own will is no company at all.

            But Zetsu likes to feed him information on Tobirama from time to time, and he never turns it down. Zetsu _knows_.

 

            He records the sight with his own eyes. Just to have something to keep him company in the darkness. Something to try and comfort himself with at night.

            Because he isn’t the only one hurting. The dull ache in his heart is soothed by the knowledge of company, even if he is, in actuality still alone. It makes him feel a bit better.

 

            Zetsu feeds him visions over the years, always morsels designed to whet his appetite. They remind him why he’s working for Tsuki no Me, they affirm his desire for a perfect world where everyone is happy. He regrets the fact that it couldn’t happen during Hashirama’s lifetime, but it isn’t just for Madara and his loved ones. It’s for everyone; people he will never know, people he will never really care about, even people who won’t deserve it. He can save them all.

            But he still watches.

            He watches when Tobirama teaches his own blood, an _Uchiha_ following a _Senju_ so loyally (and it should warm his heart, but he hates the way Kagami looks at Tobirama), and the way he shows that Sarutobi brat new techniques and smiles when he masters them. He watches the way Tobirama sits with Mito, the both of them staring at nothing, and the way he visits his cousin’s grave once a week. He watches Tobirama’s attempts at diplomacy with the Tsuchikage break down, and the way Tobirama meets with the Raikage; the way they look together. It makes him angry.

            But…

            He surprises himself when he doesn’t want to watch Tobirama die. Zetsu is gloating when he slides back in with the recorded scene. He whispers reverently when he tells Madara that Senju Tobirama is dead and he’s _seen_ it. And the disgust that curls in Madara’s gut when Zetsu tells him he can show him every detail is surprising.

            He always thought he would want to see it.

            But he doesn’t.

            It doesn’t matter anyway.

            He’ll have his own perfect version of Tobirama some day. One that didn’t kill Izuna, didn’t have shadows in his mind or a hole in his heart.

            Something nasty deep inside tells him that it won’t be Tobirama at all then, but he silences that voice through sheer will.

            Zetsu looks so disappointed at his refusal.

            And for just a second, Madara wonders whether Zetsu came from him at all. Maybe Zetsu is someone else’s darkness hanging around simply to feed off of him – a second-hand, throbbing web of blackness attached to the hole in Madara’s heart and drawing strength from his despair.

            But then, that seems unlikely.

            Zetsu _knows_ him.

            Even if…

            The idea of something old lurking in the dark has occurred to him before. Insinuated itself into his mind from the back of hard stone.

            And, he can remember – Tobirama on top of him, clenching around him with hands braced on his chest; being aroused by the depth of the moment, the vividness of it, and how the whiteness of Tobirama’s skin, of his hair, bled into the darkness, made a halo of softness smeared around him.

            That one perfect night.

            And the wrong words that came out of his mouth.

            It probably won’t matter in the long run.

 

            Not when it’s years before he sees another face with his own eyes.

            Not when he has someone to corrupt and twist, and make a boy into an imitation of what he can salvage of himself.

            He passes off his own identity like skin for the boy to wear, and he should have been left in the dark to decay, but Zetsu doesn’t let that happen.

            But at least…He doesn’t have to be Madara anymore. Someone else can have that for a while.

**Author's Note:**

> Also, I was wondering if anyone would catch it, but I may have accidentally implied a ship in there... I'm not saying anything though, because I don't think it was too obvious and it was pretty cracky. Probably I implied several, I'm good at writing in relationships by accident - my creative writing class pointed that out to me.


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